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Here's your free access to our lesson on "The Nature of Strategic Planning"
Don't start Strategic Planning with this misunderstanding!
Teams often struggle with wanting to do strategic planning but also feel hesitant to take it on. One reason is that regularly, people misunderstand the nature of strategic planning through the experience of operational planning – and it makes them dread the idea of doing strategic planning.
People see a need to have a shared focus, set priorities, and ensure staff and stakeholders support the common goals, which is why they are interested in strategic planning (this is the right path, interested in the right thing).
However, they imagine the nature of strategic planning from the lens of their existing planning experience, which is usually operational planning. This misunderstanding often results in feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of completing strategic planning (at best) and doing the wrong planning process altogether (at worst).
Click the play button below to watch the lesson!
[This is a lesson from our Foundations Masterclass, available On-Demand.]
After you watch the video, read the material below to expand your learning.
Operational Planning vs. Strategic Planning
Teams are often interested in strategic planning because they:
- feel overwhelmed
- need a shared focus
- want to rally staff and stakeholders around a common goal
- are interested in creating something new or different
- want to have a clear path for the future
These are great reasons to consider completing a strategic planning process. But before you do, ensure you understand the difference between operational and strategic planning.
Operational Planning
Operational planning includes those planning efforts that generally start with existing obligations, then plan for how to fulfill those obligations. The key assumption is that the existing obligations you are planning for, must be fulfilled or completed. Assumptions and obligations are not questioned or challenged.
Often, teams get together at a retreat and make a list of all the things they have to do, then create a plan to get those things done. This is classic operational planning masquerading as strategic planning. It's a mildly strategic attempt to organize the to-do lists.
This kind of planning is crucial and often required. That’s why there’s so much of it within any resource management agency and why most people’s experience is in operational planning. It serves an important purpose to keep places protected and visitors safe, makes sure that you are following policy and law, and gives you a map for accomplishing known to-dos.
Operational planning tends to add work and doesn't balance workload and capacity, and it tends to be reactive or responsive instead of proactive--which are key reasons many people dread planning.
Common Outcomes of Operational Planning
- Task lists
- Assigning projects
- Due dates/calendars built around existing upcoming obligations
- Some prioritization
- Hierarchical directives from the top down
Examples:
- Annual Planning (work plans, budget plans)
- Mandated Planning (NEPA, sect. 106, tax planning)
- Coordination and Scheduling
- Project Planning
- Functional Plans (Long-Range Interpretive Plans, Resource Management Plans)
Strategic Planning
The nature of strategic planning is more creative and innovative, asks you to question assumptions and obligations, and develops something different for the team. With strategic planning, you are challenged to think differently, let go of the status quo, and find new ways of tackling complex and long-engrained challenges.
Strategic planning is proactive and future-oriented. Done well, it is nimble and able to adapt to uncertainty and change.
Strategic plans focus on one or two key changes, not a long list of all the things that need to be done. A classic example of effective strategic planning is the Space Race of the 1960s. The one key goal was to get to the moon and back safely.
Why did this work? The Law of Diminishing Returns: The more things you try to focus on, the less you accomplish. The fewer things you focus on, the more you accomplish.
An actionable strategic plan focuses your team's efforts on the most important thing to do now, at this point in time, and narrows their focus, making real progress towards the most important changes.
Common Outcomes of Strategic Planning
- A paradigm for moving tasks off the task list
- Champions for streamlined goals
- Adaptable timeline built to make the future you envision a reality
- Motivating vision and direction built from the staff up
Strategic planning isn't for organizing everything. It's for doing the most important things.
Workload Relationship
There is a workload relationship between operational and strategic efforts that highlights the difference between the two. Operational planning helps you organize the 90-95% of the time you spend on regular business operations, and the strategic plan gives you focus for the 5-10% of the time you should be putting toward longer-term strategic objectives.
Think about that…if you are only squeezing out 5-10% to work toward bigger strategic objectives (which is realistic), you better use that time wisely and efficiently. That’s why strategic plans are important. Basically, if there is limited time, don't waste any of that precious time figuring out what you're supposed to be doing to meet strategic goals.
Strategic planning should help you create something new for your organization, staff, and customers, something inspiring but also deeply meaningful and worthwhile to work toward alongside the operational work that will happen anyway.
